Jesus

Poem 412 – The Final Word?

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Tonight we finished Mark,
A tale of breathless action,
Inspired non-violent protest and
Vivid imagination.

That reaches across our barriers,
Draws in outcast and lost,
Embraces the rejected,
Values the poor and last.

The story that is Jesus,
The man from Galilee
Who stood against the Temple,
The powers and hypocrisy.

Was crowned upon a cross,
This sentence makes no sense,
Thus overturned the tables
And died a traitor’s death.

That builds to its crescendo,
Its resurrection scene,
And then abruptly ends.

I’ve been running a group exploring Mark’s Gospel, made up of church goers and non-church goers. It’s been a really intriguing and insightful journey.
(23.10.25)

© Ben Quant 2025
Photo by Greg Rosenke on Unsplash

Poem 370 – Advent

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A collective holding of breath,
the growing anticipation.
The draining down of sand
and dawning realisation.
A sense of something changing,
reversal of the tide.
The night is nearly over,
the day is close at hand.

It’s the first day of advent, the season when Christians look forward to the coming of Christ, both at Christmas and his return when he’ll make all things new.
(01.12.24)

© Ben Quant 2024
Photo by Emmanuel Appiah on Unsplash

Poem 80 – The Job

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And did those feet in ancient time walk here?
Of course not! But I wonder if he came
What would he think about his legacy
Entrusted to the care of those he called?
Would it be recognisable to him
Whose name it bore? I hope so but I fear
That it might leave him flummoxed as to how
It came from what it was to what is now
But this should come as no surprise, as he
Has always lived outside, skirting around
The edge, living with those we overlook
Whilst we who he invited to come in
Our natural tendency is closing doors
To make ourselves feel safe and in contrast
Alas, to what we were before we met
And so, forgive us Father and moving
From Blake’s Jerusalem to Italy
Switching between establishment and heist
We pray, come blow those bloody doors away!

A counterpoint to Poem 79…

(28.01.22)

© Ben Quant 2022

Poem 46 – Advent One

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And so the Advent season starts once more
The annual wait for Jesus Christ our hope
To come in human form, the Word made flesh
Mysterious, incarnate, God with us
This year our yearning seems more keenly felt
A weary longing seeking something more
After two years of such disrupted life
Lived greyscale not in technicolour bright
With generations past and yet to come
We cry with one voice come Lord Jesus come

Today we lit the first candle in our Advent wreath and began our seasonal wait for the coming of Jesus. Like yesterday’s poem, this is an experiment with iambic pentameter, not my natural voice, but something I’d like to work on.

(28.11.21)

© Ben Quant 2021